This morning I spent a bit of time grinding up a collection of branches that we don’t need for next year’s kindling in order to spread over some paths both by our polytunnel and on our allotment. What seemed like quite a large pile reduced down to three bags full and probably didn’t cover much over a couple of square metres at the kind of depth it needs to be applied.

I’m very grateful for the heavy duty motorised grinder/shredder we picked up a couple of years ago – this would have been an impossible task with our old hand grinder, which is better suited to soft, green material for the compost heap. Thinking of it, I believe I still need to get round to replacing a cotter pin which I broke a couple of years ago when trying to break up a branch that was too thick and thus the reason we got the heavier machine in the first place!